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Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 sci-fi-comedy film. The film was released in the United States on June 8, 1984. It was produced and directed by Ivan Reitman and stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, and Ernie Hudson. It is the first Ghostbusters related material that fits in both the Ghostbusters Movie Timeline Canon, and the Ghostbusters Animated Timeline Canon and is the starting of the Ghostbusters Franchise. The movie is most known for its No-Ghost Sign, the quote "Who you gonna Call?", the Ghostbusters Theme Song, and the Ecto-1 vehicle. Plot Synopsis Three misfit parapsychology research professors that specialize in ghosts, Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), are kicked out of a New York City University after their research grants are terminated. .]] Their first investigation is a haunting at the New York City Public Library and after seeing some symmetrical book stacking they encounter a ghost that runs them out of the Library. They decided they would take matters into they own hands and they start an business named "Ghostbusters", a "professional paranormal investigation and elimination service", out of an old firehouse, using a 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Ambulance dubbed "Ecto-1" to get about the city and hiring Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) to handle the phones. Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) of 55 Central Park West, comes to the Ghostbusters and asks for their help. The Ghostbusters do a few tests to determine that she isn't crazy as she recounts a paranormal experience in her kitchen centering around the name "Zuul". Peter seizes the opportunity to get romantically closer to Dana, and goes with her to the apartment. Using the Ghost Sniffer he checks out the place, finds nothing in the main room, and bedroom. Dana then directs him toward the kitchen where he finds eggs that cooked themselves on the counter, but gets no readings on the Ghost Sniffer despite using it correctly. Meanwhile, their funds are nearly dried up eating a Chinese food dinner, which they ate slowly. Janine gets a call with a serious client, and she rings the alarm bell. The Ghostbusters run and get dressed, then leave in the Ecto-1. They show up at Sedgewick Hotel and the Hotel manager tells them that they are having problems with a resident ghost. Following a successful test of the equipment, they split up to search the hotel for the ghost. Peter finds the ghost which then slimes him. Egon calls Ray to tell him that the ghost is now in a ballroom. They enter the ballroom and as they attempt to capture it, they destroy the room and make a lot of noise. The first capture is a success, and they find themselves an overnight success across both New York City and the nation. As the amount of calls grows, the team is required to hire a fourth member, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson). An unwanted side effect of their new found popularity produces Walter Peck (William Atherton) from the Environmental Protection Agency. He comes to the firehouse trying to inspect the Storage facility which Peter refuses to let him do. attacks and possesses Dana]] One night Dana enters her apartment and is talking on the phone to her mother; after the call she gets grabbed by arms that come out of her chair. She is taken in to the kitchen where she becomes possessed by Zuul. Meanwhile, Louis Tully (Rick Moranis), another resident of the apartments, is hosting a party for the fourth anniversary of him becoming and accountant, when a dog (also described as a bear and a cougar - but really a Terror Dog) attacks, and chases him out of the building and to a restaurant where the it possesses him. Peter makes a visit to Dana's apartment. He quickly realizes that she has been possessed by Zuul, The Gatekeeper of Gozer. She comes on to him but ends up growling fiercely and levitating above her bed in frustration as he repeatedly rejects her advances. Louis, similarly possessed by Vinz Clortho, The Keymaster of Gozer, stumbles around Central Park. He harasses locals until finding a carriage horse and confusing it with The Gatekeeper. When the coachman questions him, Louis responds by angrily flaring his eyes red and growling at the man. Later the cops bring Louis to the Firehouse and ask Egon if he'd take him, as he is exhibiting strange behavior. Egon recognizes that Louis is possessed by Vinz Clortho, aka the "Keymaster". Peter later calls Egon to tell him about Dana being possessed by Zuul, aka the "Gatekeeper". Walter Peck obtains an court order to shut the containment grid down, and unable to stop him, the team flees the firehouse as the grid collapses and hundreds of freed ghosts flood the city. In the chaos, Zuul awakes and Vinz Clortho escapes and makes his way back to 55 Central Park West where they unite with a passionate kiss. Peck orders the Ghostbusters arrested while the ghosts create panic across the city. While waiting in jail, the team recognizes that Dana's apartment building was a huge super-conductive antenna, designed and built expressly for the purpose of pulling in and concentrating spiritual turbulence. The mayor (David Margulies) orders the release of the Ghostbusters from jail, allowing them to get to work to prevent the potential catastrophe overriding Peck's demands. Assisted by the police and Army, the Ghostbusters make their way to the top of 55 Central Park West. They are too late to prevent Dana and Louis from completing the ritual for the coming of Gozer. As they open a dimensional gate on the top of the building, they are transformed into their Terror Dog forms. When Gozer (Slavitza Jovan) emerges in a female humanoid form, the team tries to shoot her with their packs, but fail to harm her. Gozer disappears and tells them to select the next form it will take, and though the team tries to empty their minds, Ray is unable to. Ray thinks about the most innocent thing he could imagine: the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The team finds that a giant version of the marshmallow mascot has begun to lay waste to the city as it makes its way to the apartments and starts climbing the building. Egon realizes that the only way to end the destruction is to reverse the particle flow through the gate by crossing the streams, resulting in "total protonic reversal" which would destroy Gozer and the interdimensional gate. The plan is risky at best, but there is definitely a very slim chance of their survival. As the giant creature reaches the top of the building, the team executes Egon's plan, causing the gate to seal itself, creating an explosion and burning the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man away into large amounts of liquid marshmallow fluff. The Ghostbusters find that they have all survived, and that Dana and Louis have returned to their normal, unpossessed, human forms. The team is cheered on as they leave the building and drive away. Development The concept was inspired by Aykroyd's own fascination with the paranormal, and it was conceived by Aykroyd as a vehicle for himself and for his friend and fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus John Belushi. The original story as written by Aykroyd was very different than what would be eventually filmed. In that version a group of Ghostbusters would travel through time, space and other dimensions taking on huge ghosts (of which the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man was just one of many). Also, the Ghostbusters wore S.W.A.T.-like outfits and used wands instead of Proton Packs to fight the ghosts; Ghostbusters storyboards show them wearing riotsquad-type helmets with movable transparent visors. Aykroyd pitched his story to director / producer Ivan Reitman, who liked the basic idea but immediately saw the budgetary impossibilities demanded by Aykroyd's first draft. At Reitman's suggestion, the story was given a major overhaul, eventually evolving into the final screenplay which Aykroyd and Ramis hammered out over the course of three weeks in a Martha's Vineyard bomb shelter. Aykroyd and Ramis initially wrote the script with roles written especially for Belushi, Eddie Murphy and John Candy. However, Belushi died of a drug overdose during the writing of the screenplay, and neither Murphy nor Candy could commit to the movie due to prior engagements. In addition to Aykroyd's high-concept basic premise and Ramis' skill at grounding the fantastic elements with a realistic setting, the film benefits from Bill Murray's semi-improvisational performance as Peter Venkman, the character initially intended for Belushi. The extent of Murray's improvisation while delivering his lines varies wildly with every re-telling of the making of the film; some say he never even read the script, and improvised so much he deserves a writing credit, while others insist that he only improvised a few lines, and used his deadpan comic delivery to make scripted lines seem spontaneous. The Ghostbusters DVD credits Ramis with writing nearly all of Murray's lines. Louis Tully was originally conceived as a conservative man in a business suit played by comedian John Candy, but Candy was unable to commit to the role. The role was taken by Rick Moranis, portraying Louis as a geek. Gozer was originally going to appear in the form of Ivo Shandor as a slender, unremarkable man in a suit played by Paul Reubens. In the end, the role was played by Yugoslavian model Slavitza Jovan, whose Eastern European accent (later dubbed by Paddi Edwards) caused Gozer's line "choose and perish" to sound like "Jews and berries" to the crew's amusement. Harold Ramis had no intention of acting in any role in the film. He planned on only helping Aykroyd write the screenplay. However, the crew struggled to cast the role of Egon Spengler, even after renowned actors such as Chevy Chase, Michael Keaton, Christopher Walken, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd and Jeff Goldblum were considered. Feeling he knew the character best since he created him, Ramis accepted the role of Egon. He credits this move in revitalizing his acting career, as Ramis had focused mainly on off-screen work such as writing and directing before this. Winston Zeddemore was written with Eddie Murphy in mind, but he had to decline the role as he was filming Beverly Hills Cop at the same time. If Murphy had been cast, Zeddemore would have been hired much earlier in the film, and would've accompanied the trio on their hunt for Slimer at the hotel and been slimed in place of Peter Venkman. When Ernie Hudson took over, it was decided that he be brought in later to indicate how the Ghostbusters were struggling to keep up with the outbreak of ghosts. Gozer's temple was the biggest and most expensive set ever to be constructed at that time. In order to properly light it and create the physical effects for the set, other stages needed to be shut down and all their power diverted over to the set. The hallway sets for the Sedgewick Hotel were originally built for the movie Rich and Famous in 1981 and patterned after the Algonquin Hotel in New York City, where Reitman originally wanted to do the hotel bust. The Biltmore Hotel was chosen because the large lobby allowed for a tracking shot of the Ghostbusters in complete gear for the first time. Dana Barrett and Louis Tully's apartments were constructed across two stages and were actually on the other side of their doors in the hallway, an unusual move in filmmaking. A problem arose during filming when it was discovered that a show was produced in 1975 by Filmation for CBS called The Ghost Busters, starring Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker. Columbia Pictures prepared a list of alternative names just in case the rights could not be secured, but during the filming of the crowd for the final battle, the extras were all chanting "Ghostbusters", which inspired the producers to insist that the studio buy the rights to the name. For the test screening of Ghostbusters, half of the ghost effects were missing, not yet having been completed by the production team. The audience response was still enthusiastic, and the ghost elements were completed for the official theatrical release shortly thereafter. In the middle of the film's initial release, to keep interest going, Ivan Reitman had a trailer run, which was basically the same commercial that the Ghostbusters use in the movie, but with the 555 number replaced with a 1-800 number, allowing people to call. They got a recorded message of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd saying something to the effect of "Hi. We're out catching ghosts right now." They got 1,000 calls per hour, 24 hours a day, for six weeks. Their promotion was similar to that of a calling service offered by the production of The Empire Strikes Back. Deleted Scenes Main Characters Dr. Peter Venkman Dr. Peter Venkman (portrayed by Bill Murray) Dr. Ray Stantz Dr. Raymond Stantz (portrayed by Dan Aykroyd) Dr. Egon Spengler Dr. Egon Spengler (portrayed by Harold Ramis) Winston Zeddemore Winston Zeddemore (portrayed by Ernie Hudson) Louis Tully Louis Tully (portrayed by Rick Moranis) Dana Barrett Dana Barrett (portrayed by Sigourney Weaver) Minor Characters *Janine Melnitz (portrayed by Annie Potts) *Walter Peck (portrayed by William Atherton) *Mayor Lenny (portrayed by David Margulies) *Archbishop (portrayed by Tom Mcdermott) *Alice the librarian (portrayed by Alice Drummond) *Cosmonaut guy (portrayed by Murray Rubin) *Dean Yeager (portrayed by Jordan Charney) *Hotel manager (portrayed by Michael Ensign) *Jennifer (portrayed by Jennifer Runyon) *Mrs. Van Hoffman (portrayed by Kathryn Janssen) *Roger Delicore (portrayed by John Rothman) *Ted and Annette Fleming (portrayed by Paul Trafas and Cheryl Birchenfield) *Electrical shocks guy (portrayed by Steven Tash) *The Stiff (portrayed by Timothy Carhardt) *Harlan Bojay (portrayed by Bill Murray) *Robert Learned Coombs (portrayed by Dan Aykroyd) *Police Captain (portrayed by Joe Cirillo) *The Jail guard (portrayed by Reginald VelJohnson) Ghosts *Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (Gozer's Earth form) *Slimer (voiced by Ivan Reitman) *Gozer (portrayed by Slavitzva Jovan and voiced by Paddi Edwards) *(Terror dogs) Zuul (voiced by Ivan Reitman) *(Terror dogs) Vinz Clortho *Library ghost (portrayed by Ruth Oliver) *Taxi driver ghost *Subway Ghost Cameo *Casey Kasem *Joe Franklin *Larry King *Roger Grimsby *Bill Walton *Ron Jeremy Equipment/Vehicle *Uniform *Proton pack *Trap *P.K.E. meter *Ecto goggles *Ghost Sniffer *Motorola MT500 Radio *Ecto-1 *Storage facility *Aura Video-Analyzer *Tobin's Spirit Guide *Spade's Catalog Places/Locations *Dana's apartment *Sedgewick Hotel *Firehouse *University *New York City Public Library *Camp Oconda *55 Central Park West Release The DVD version of the movie was released and became one of the fastest selling units ever on Reel.com. Sony had announced at Comic-Con 2008 that the Blu-Ray version of the film was to be released on October 21, 2008, the Blu-Ray was released on June 18, 2009 to coincide with the release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game. Gallery Image:Folder2.jpg| Category:Ghostbusters Movie Category:films